Even wi-fi baby monitors can be hacked

A couple in the US state of Ohio say they feel violated after discovering their baby monitor camera was hacked by a stranger.
By
SBS

UPDATED YESTERDAY 5:52 PM

Mother Heather Schreck said she only discovered an intruder had hacked into her baby monitor when she was awoken in the middle of night by the sound of a voice. “I was just absolutely shocked to see that somebody could get into my house so easily,” she said. Picking up her mobile phone, which was streaming the baby monitor, she noticed the images were moving erratically as if someone was changing the viewing position of the camera. “About the time I saw it moving, I also heard a voice again start screaming at my daughter. He was screaming ‘wake up baby, wake up baby’,” Ms Schreck said. Her partner, Adam Schreck, said he was deeply disturbed by the discovery. “You kind of do feel violated in a way,” he said.

Security expert Dave Hatter at Infinity Partners said hackers can access any Internet-connected device. “It’s not just that they want to get in and mess with your camera,” he said. “More sophisticated hackers know they can use this as a launching off point to get into your network and potentially steal your identity, or use your network to launch malicious attacks against something else.”